~~~

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Trump is a pathological liar and bullshitter, so most of what he claimed in the SOTU was either misleading or another series of his damn lies. Only his base will believe the b.s. he feeds them. People with critical thinking skills know better.The great Charlie Pierce of Esquire sums the SOTU perfectly:WASHINGTON—It was the most elaborate of charades, the most sophisticated of masquerades, that played itself out in the chamber of the House of Representatives on Tuesday night. The amount of pretense required to keep all sensible people—which is to say, any person who was not a Republican—in their chairs must have been heroic.
All involved had to pretend that Donald Trump makes sense as a president, that his administration makes sense as a government, and that his first State of the Union address made sense as either a description of national policy, or as a rhetorical summons to national unity. All involved had to pretend that his thoughts were coherent, that his words made sense, and that the complete and universal collapse of civic responsibility that propelled him onto the podium was not the most singularly destructive event in the history of American democracy since the Civil War. Everyone had to pretend that a freak show was Shakespeare, and that a rumbling, stumbling geek was Lincoln, and that the whole tableau unfolding before the Congress was somehow made noble despite the obvious fact that the whole event was an endless procession of lies and half-truths, and that the only truly remarkable thing about the speech was that it was such a perfectly round and complete crock of shit.

"We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history."
— Donald Trump on Tuesday, January 30th, 2018 in his State of the Union address
President Trump’s State of the Union speech had soaring rhetoric — and many dubious facts and figures. Many of these claims have been fact-checked repeatedly, yet the president persists in using them.

“Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone.”
Trump often inflates the number of jobs created under his presidency by counting Election Day, rather than when he took the oath of office. There have been about 1.8 million jobs created since January 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the slowest gain in jobs since 2010, which indicates how well job growth was going before Trump took office.
There were 184,000 manufacturing jobs created in the 11 months since Trump took the oath of office, compared with a loss of 16,000 in 2016, according to the BLS. This is a substantial one-year gain, but it’s still more than 1 million manufacturing jobs below the level at the start of the Great Recession.

“After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.”
Trump once again takes credit for something that began to happen before his presidency. Wages have been on an upward trend since 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and in fact their growth slowed during the first year of Trump’s presidency.
Looking closely at the data, it’s possible to argue wages were Looking closely at the data, it’s possible to argue wages were stagnant from 2000 to 2014, but the median salary has been increasing steadily since then and actually declined in the fourth quarter of 2017, from $353 a week to $345 in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Imagine what the reaction from the Goopers would have been if Russia, a country hostile to the United States, had said this about President Obama, a man they continue to this day calling a "Commie-Marxist." The Goopers say nothing about trump's allegiance to Putin, a man who murders his opponents and whose government meddled in the 2016 US presidential election that put Trump in the White House.

"

‘Trump is ours again!’ Russian TV host celebrates after White House refuses to enforce new sanctionsRussia’s state television channel seems to be happy with President Donald Trump’s decision to not enforce sanctions against Russia that were overwhelmingly approved by both houses of Congress.
Julia Davis, who runs the Russian Media Monitor website, reports via Twitter that Russian TV show host Olga Skabeeva on Tuesday was positively gushing about the White House’s decision to not enforce new sanctions against her country. “Seemingly, Trump is ours again,” said Skabeeva, according to Davis’ translation. “So far, he’s being quiet and not supporting the sanctions.” Co-host Evgeny Popov seemingly agreed and told her, “Well, it seems that way.”
#Russia's state TV:
Female host: "Seemingly, Trump is ours again. So far, he's being quiet and not supporting the sanctions."
Male host: "Well, it seems that way."

По-видимому, Козырь наш снова!

Well isn't that special! Trump belongs to Russia! He certainly has shown the American people that he doesn't belong to US!

And then I'll say there's no need to enforce the lawful sanctions, okay Putie?

Melania may be the only honest person in the White House. Her reaction to Trump's bullsh*t "faith and family" is perfect. She and the rest of the world (except of course, the Trumpistas), know what a philandering pig Donald J. Trump truly is. "Faith and family" are nothing to him but words to read from a teleprompter.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

On Tuesday night, the president will read a speech somebody else wrote for him. The pundits will say he sounds presidential. And on Wednesday Donald Trump will go back to being Donald Trump.
White House officials prepped reporters for Tuesday’s performance by saying that President Trump will be “optimistic” as well as “very unifying” and that “the tone will be one of bipartisanship and it will be very forward looking.” And Trump will speak “from the heart.”
No. Trump will speak “from a teleprompter.” That’s why we’ll hear “unifying” and “bipartisan” notes. If you want “from the heart,” check his Twitter account.UPDATE:

Treating the Constitutionally mandated STOU address like a teevee money-a-thon, Trump's son, Eric, solicited money from Trumpistas by promising to have their names scrolled across the teevee screen during the SOTU.From USAToday:"Even if you choose to only give $1, the proof of your support will send shockwaves around the world as they see every American who proudly stands behind our President," said the pitch signed by the president's son, Eric Trump. The fundraising technique is raising eyebrows from ethics watchdogs, who say the unprecedented attempt to raise money off an official White House event crosses a line.
Fred Wertheimer, president of the organization Democracy 21. 'It is a no class, money-grubbing misuse of the State of the Union address that is way beneath the dignity of the presidency and the occasion.'In a solicitation, the Trump campaign asks supporters to 'make a special State of the Union contribution to have your name broadcast on the Official Donald J. Trump for President livestream.' Suggested contributions range from $35 to $2,700.""...no class, money-grubbing...way beneath the dignity of the presidency and the occasion."That's a perfect description of the Trump Presidency, with one addition: the current presidency is also headed by a vile bedswerver.

Monday, January 29, 2018

President Trump reportedly told then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he should ask his wife, who had lost a bid for political office in Virginia, how it felt to be a loser, NBC News reported Monday.

Trump made the remarks in a phone call to McCabe the day he fired FBI Director James Comey that was placed to demand why Comey was allowed to fly on a FBI plane from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., after being fired. McCabe told Trump that he hadn’t been asked about the flight but that he would have authorized it if he had.
Trump fell silent before lashing out at McCabe and telling him to ask his wife what it felt like to be a loser, according to NBC.
The FBI head replied, “OK, sir,” before Trump ended the call.
McCabe’s wife had run as a Democrat for state office in Virginia but had lost the race.

If McCabe knew then what is public knowledge now, he could have told Trump to ask Melania how it felt to know that Trump, her new husband, was cheating on her with a porn star after the recent birth of their son.That is far, far worse than losing an election.Trump is a blight on America. He is an undisciplined, moral pig and pathological liar. His supporters are worse than he is.

"The Rethuglicans' Moral Rot There really should be no debate about whether sociopath and sexual predator Donald "Rump" Trump is a manifestation of the long-developing rot within the Rethuglican / New Confederate / Pedophile Party, or a departure from their norm. In their "up is down" world view, more Rethugs are satisfied with the moral and ethical climate now than under President Obama, per this recent Gallup poll ":

Let's this sink in: The people who call themselves "Evangelical Christians" support and admire Trump who is a serial adulterer who paid $130,000 to a porn star to keep her mouth shut about his whoring with her when his third wife had just had his son. Trump, ever the selfish pig, never stopped to think about how his son, Barron, will feel when he (if he hasn't already) finds out about his father's infidelity to his mother when their marriage was still new, and she had just given birth to him. Never forget the Moral Rot that is the current Republican Party and the morally rotten so-called "Christians" who continue to support the indefensible anti-family values pig in America's White House.

If it looks like obstruction of justice; if it acts like obstruction of justice; if it sounds like obstruction of justice, it probably IS obstruction of justice.Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin:

McGahn recognized the key fact—that Trump wanted to fire Mueller for the wrong reasons. Trump wanted to fire Mueller because his investigation was threatening to him. This, of course, also illuminates the reasons behind Trump’s firing of Comey, which took place just a month before the President’s confrontation with McGahn regarding Mueller. Trump and his advisers have offered various tortured rationalizations for the firing of Comey—initially, for example, on the ground that Comey had been unfair to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Trump himself came clean in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt and in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister. In both, Trump acknowledged that he fired Comey to stall or stop the Russia investigation—that is, the investigation of Trump himself and his campaign.
This was an improper purpose, and McGahn clearly saw that the same improper purpose underlay Trump’s determination to fire Mueller. So McGahn issued the ultimatum that prompted the President to back down. Mueller and his team surely have evidence on obstruction of justice that has not yet been made public. But even on the available evidence, Trump’s position looks perilous indeed. The portrait is of a President using every resource at his disposal to shut down an investigation—of Trump himself. And now it has become clear that Trump’s own White House counsel rebelled at the President’s rationale for his actions.

"The major scoop in The New York Times that has shaken up the world can be read in a number of different ways that all lead to the same conclusion. Right from jump, the president* has been scared right down to his silk boxers of what Mueller would discover regarding his campaign’s connections to Russian ratfcking and regarding his business connections to freshly laundered Russian cash. This conclusion does not change even if you think that White House counsel Don McGahn leaked this story to make himself the hero or to cover his own ass. This conclusion does not change even if you think the ratlines off the listing hulk of this administration are thick with fleeing rodents. This whole thing remains a product of the president*’s guilty mind.(And the story did shake up the world. The president* went before a gathering in Davos on Friday and began raving about “fake news” and the perfidy of the American media. He got booed. Many cats were called. No shoes were thrown, but George W. Bush set a pretty high bar there.) The story does explain the curious frenzy over the last week: the president*’s saying that he’s “looking forward” to a chat with Mueller, and that he might even deign to have the chat under oath; the apparent rush to present the Congress with a half-baked “compromise plan” on immigration that has no chance of passing the House of Representatives; and the fact that the president* took every member of his inner circle except his wife to Switzerland. I suspect those folks heard the baying of the hound even before Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman did. More ominous is the possibility that McGahn—or whomever—leaked this story because the president* is thinking about firing Mueller now, or in the near future, and whoever the leaker was understands very well what a monumental calamity that would be for all concerned."TRUMP GETS BOOED ON THE WORLD STAGE FOR HIS "POOR ME" COMPLAINTS ABOUT "FAKE" NEWS.This is how trump makes America great: Getting booed for all the world to see. What a

In Davos, Switzerland, reporters asked Lord Dampnut about the reports that he wanted to fire Robert Mueller last June. Trump answered the reporters' questions by calling the report "fake news," and saying the New York Times is "failing."For the record: Trump is the worst, biggest, most flagrant liar that has ever defiled the Oval Office.If he says he didn't do it or calls the report "fake," then we know the report must be true. Everything DJT says is is a lie until proved otherwise.

From the WaPo:

"President Donald Trump ordered special counsel Robert Mueller to be fired last year but backed down after the White House's top attorney threatened to resign, according to a source familiar with the issue.
White House counsel Don McGahn threatened to quit after Trump pushed the idea of firing Mueller in June, the source said.
In a statement, Ty Cobb, the White House attorney who is focused on the Russia investigation, said, "We decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process."Trump wanted to fire Mueller in June but backed down when White House counsel threatened to quitby KRISTEN WELKER and PHIL HELSEL, NBC News

"President Donald Trump ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller last June, but backed off when his White House counsel threatened to resign, a source with firsthand knowledge close to the White House told NBC News Thursday."VOX:Trump’s attempt to fire Robert Mueller, explainedThe New York Times reports that the president ordered Mueller fired last June, but White House counsel Don McGahn defied him.So far, we know this: *Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, then bragged to the Russians that he got the investigation off his back. *Trump told NBC's Lester Holt that the reason he fired Comey was because of the Russia investigation.*Trump'ss NSA Michael Flynn is charged with a felon for lying about his Russian contacts and his work for foreign governments while in the employ of the White House.*Trump's son, Donald J. Trump, Jr., met in Trump Tower with Russian agents to gain information about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.*Since January 20, 2017, trump has lied over 2,000 times.*While his 3rd wife was recovering from giving birth to his son, trump entered into a sexual relationship with a porn star. Trump then had his lawyers pay the porn star $130,000 to keep her mouth shut (ha!) before the 2016 election.The Evangelical Christians are fine with this.For a bit of hilarity:This from trump parasite and cheerleader:
Sean Hannity on Thursday night was forced to backtrack on his own show as Fox News confirmed a New York Times report he had just attacked.
Earlier in his show, Hannity blasted a report that said President Donald Trump had tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller last year and accused the Times of “trying to distract you.” “Our sources, and I’ve checked in with many of them, they’re not confirming that tonight,” he said. “And how many times has the New York Times and others gotten it wrong?” By the end of the show, he was forced to admit that Fox News had confirmed the Times report.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Noticeably left out is POTUS who shags porn stars while wife is home with newborn child.

Also this:Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says Trump gets a "mulligan" with Stormy after Melania gave birth to their son, Barron. So, is that what the GOP Xtians are calling serial adultery these days? Trump got a "mulligan" on with Stormy? LOL!

Saturday, January 20, 2018

"Trump is responsible for the shutdown of the government, despite what his feckless friends and allies might have us believe. It is, nonetheless, just a blip on the political radar, despite how painful it may be to some. The fact is we must never forget the greater danger, and it is a danger, of Trump in the White House.

"He does not believe in American ideals and institutions. He does not believe in a free press or free speech; unconstrained, he would crack down on both. He does not believe in the rule of law, a Justice Department free of political interference, the separation of powers or an independent judiciary. He does not believe in the United States as a beacon and example to the world."

I continue to be confident, despite the setbacks to civility and common sense, that our institutions can withstand this assault and that our national reputation has, over the years, been so well-earned that others will understand that Donald Trump does NOT reflect who we are. We can only hope."

From my friend, Stephen B.

Warning - Hyperbole ahead: sometimes it is the best way to make a point.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

And below is some background on Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele. Fascinating. But the most important revelation to come out of the Fusion GPS document is that YES, the Russians were very much involved with Trump and his campaign, and Trump very likely has had some shady dealings with Russian mafia.What is most troubling is the fact that that Russia involved itself in the 2016 election and that the only one who refuses to understand that is Trump, who continues to call the Russian connection to him and his campaign "a hoax." Trump has refused to call for an investigation into Russian tampering in the US election, thereby, allowing Putin to continue his assault on our electoral processes.Why is that?

WASHINGTON — By the time the FBI sat down in September 2016 for a full interview with the ex-British spy who had been researching Donald Trump’s Russia connections, the bureau had already received information raising concerns about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to a transcript made public Tuesday. Glenn Simpson, a former newspaper reporter and the founder of a research firm called Fusion GPS, spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee for more than 10 hours in August about his research into Trump, and on Tuesday more than 300 pages of his testimony were released by the committee’s ranking Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California.
Simpson told the committee that his associate, the former British intelligence operative Christopher Steele, sat down for a “full debriefing” with an FBI contact in Rome in September 2016.During the debriefing, Steele shared information from his Russian sources, who said Trump had been coordinating with the Russian election-interference campaign of hacking and leaking.
For the FBI, it wasn’t entirely new information, Simpson testified.
“They believed Chris might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing," Simpson said. "One of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization." He added that the FBI had a “walk-in" whistleblower who was someone in Trump’s orbit.

[SKIP]

A front-page New York Times article on Oct. 31 about the Trump-Russia investigation said the FBI had found no conclusive link between Trump and Russia.
After the article was published, Simpson said, Steele severed his relationship with the FBI. “There was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn't really understand what was going on,” Simpson said.
It has since emerged that there was an active FBI counterintelligence investigation, which began in July 2016 but which the bureau kept secret.
Simpson said a dossier, which contained unverified allegations that Russia had been cultivating Trump for years and had gathered compromising information on Trump, contained all the memos Steele had produced for Fusion GPS, and that neither Fusion nor Simpson selected the content or edited the memos. The dossier was published by Buzzfeed.
Simpson said when he began his research into Trump, he was struck by Trump’s many connections to people linked to Russian organized crime, including Felix Sater, who pleaded guilty in 1998 to a mafia stock swindle and later helped Trump develop the Trump Soho hotel.
Simpson said he found Steele’s reports that the Russians were coordinating with the Trump campaign credible.Fusion GPS transcripts reveal two things—the corruption of Trump, the treachery of the Republicans"By the end of the transcript, a few things were clear: Even before they hired Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS was well aware of Trump’s numerous connections to crime bosses in Russia and in former Soviet states. Steele was hired, not to generate information, but to fill in the gaps around relationships that were already obvious from the public record and Trump’s own statements. And almost from the moment he began investigating, Steele came across a flood of confirmation— information that included deliberate efforts on the part of the Russian government to influence the United States election. Information so disturbing that Steele felt it was requisite on him, as a professional with decades of experience in intelligence, to take what he had learned to American authorities and inform them of a grave and growing danger. When he did, Steele was relieved to find that the FBI was already on the topic and taking it seriously, thanks to information that originated inside Trump’s campaign. Most of all, the transcript revealed just why Senator Chuck Grassley was so determined to keep it hidden. Because the clear words on the page made it obvious that the criminal charges leveled at Steele by Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham went beyond political showboating and into the realm of egregious obstruction. The transcript makes it dead clear that Republicans have no interest in finding the truth, or in protecting the nation."

Monday, January 8, 2018

Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....

Trump officially ended his campaign on the February 14, 2000 airing of The Today Show. Though he believed he could still win the Reform Party presidential nomination, he felt the party was too dysfunctional to support his campaign and enable a win in the general election.

This is another example of why we should never, ever believe Trump.

Just a reminder: Barack Obama won the Presidency on his ACTUAL first try.